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The week in review : Political roller coaster
The Great Indonesia Coalition, the political bedrock of President Joko âJokowiâ Widodoâs administration, was widely expected to promote clean governance in line with the Presidentâs promise
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he Great Indonesia Coalition, the political bedrock of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's administration, was widely expected to promote clean governance in line with the President's promise. The coalition has instead mounted pressure on Jokowi to install graft suspect Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as the National Police chief.
In the case of the National Police chief succession, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the biggest party in the Great Indonesia Coalition, has surprisingly acted like an opposition party when it, through some of its politicians, threatened to withdraw its support for Jokowi, who failed to inaugurate Budi. The politicians even raised the possibility of Jokowi's impeachment, a prospect more expected from the opposing Red-and-White Coalition.
Jokowi has come under criticism from his supporters who are disappointed with his apparent indecisiveness regarding Budi's candidacy, which to some extent has led to a standoff between the National Police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which had named Budi a suspect owing to allegedly suspicious bank accounts.
Observers have remarked that the presidential system of government reserves for Jokowi the prerogative to install Budi or not. But Jokowi cannot underestimate the interests of his political allies, including the PDI-P. Budi is a former adjutant of PDI-P chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri when she was vice president in 1999-2001 and president in 2001-2004.
In response to the Great Indonesia Coalition's pressure on Jokowi, the public has started to question the ruling coalition's commitment to the fight against corruption. Forcing the President to inaugurate Budi as the new National Police chief in place of Gen. Sutarman, the coalition is feared to lose public sympathy and in turn its votes in the upcoming regional elections to be held simultaneously in September.
Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi) coordinator Sebastian Salang said that polemic on Budi's nomination would cost the electability of regional-head candidates supported by political parties like the PDI-P and Nasdem Party.
'They have to be aware that such a stance is politically dangerous both for the President's and the parties' image,' Sebastian said.
The political brouhaha has given Prabowo Subianto, a key figure in the opposition camp and chairman of the Gerindra Party, a new stage since he lost to Jokowi in the presidential election last year. Prabowo met with Jokowi at Bogor Palace in West Java on Thursday, the first encounter between the two since October 2014. Prabowo reiterated after the meeting his full support for the government and his belief that Jokowi would make a decision that benefits the people regarding Budi's nomination.
'I'm sure he [Jokowi] will put the public interest above other interests and will choose what is best for the nation,' Prabowo said.
Prabowo supported Jokowi's commitment to empowering all state institutions, including the police and the KPK. He also supported whatever decision the President, as the holder of the people's mandate, made with regard to the selection of the National Police chief.
Prabowo and other Red-and-White Coalition leaders regrouped later on Thursday and expressed readiness to respond to any resistance to President Jokowi's decision on Budi's nomination, including from the Great Indonesia Coalition.
Public pressure has mounted on Jokowi to cancel Budi's nomination. The latest call came from a nine-strong independent team headed by former Muhammadiyah chairman Syafii Maarif who asked Jokowi in a meeting on Wednesday to drop Budi's candidacy for the sake of the nation's war on corruption.
The political roller coaster came as Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf Kalla marked their 100th day in office. Although the two refused to take the first 100 days as a yardstick for measuring their government's performance, some observers deemed that the new administration had not fared too badly.
Observers appreciated Jokowi's breakthrough economic policies, such as his bold move to fix fuel subsidies so as to save funds for infrastructure, education, healthcare and poverty alleviation. The fuel policy has given Jokowi wide fiscal room to realize his popular programs.
Marking the first 100 days in office this week, Jokowi also launched a one-stop integrated services initiative to accelerate investment licensing at the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), which was difficult to realize in the past due to competition of interests among related ministries. The egocentrism has resulted in overlapping powers, bureaucratic hassles and legal uncertainty, which all scare investors.
The government expects the speedy investment licensing procedure to help boost Indonesian economic growth from 5.1 percent expected last year to 5.8 percent this year, although Bank Indonesia set the mark at between 5.2 and 5.8 percent.
The public's long wait to learn the cause of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash has begun to unfold as the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) announced preliminary results of its probe into the Dec. 28, 2014 accident, which is feared to have killed all 162 people on board. The search for the victims, however, is continuing, albeit on a lower scale.
The plane's black box retrieved earlier found that the jet's stall-warning system turned on after it reached an altitude of 11,300 meters. KNKT head investigator Mardjono Siswosuwarno said co-pilot Remi Emmanuel Plesel was in control of the flight while pilot Iriyanto was monitoring at the time of the accident.
The KNKT expects to finish the final report of its investigation in seven months.
